Thursday, February 22, 2018 – Roy had cataract surgery on his right eye on December 12 of last year (about 3 months ago). Our family eye doctor did the surgery. Our family has been patients of his for decades. My mom, my sister, brother in law all went or still go to him. He did both of my cataract surgeries in 2012. Both were fine. We never questioned going to him, but when Roy’s surgery results weren’t getting better we got concerned. We’ve been back to the original doctor three times since the surgery and have another appointment for March 7th. At that time, if Roy’s vision hadn’t improved he was going to have what’s called a YAG procedure to help the vision clear up.

This morning our daughter in law Misty tagged us on a Facebook post that someone she knows wrote about his experience recently with our original doctor and his cataract surgery. We private messaged him to make sure he had his surgery done at the same doctor that did Roy’s and he did. We asked him who he went to, to hopefully fix the problems that he has caused by our doctor. He gave us the name of Dr. Christopher Grenier with Ochsner Medical in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We called and they had a cancellation so we got an appointment the same day at 1:45. This is absolutely one of those times I feel God was all over this.

We’ve not used our original doctor’s name in here for a few reasons. Mainly his name is so very similar to Dr. Grenier that reading this could become quite confusing.

The technician called us back from the waiting room very quickly and spent a lot of time with Roy checking things. She was much much more thorough than anyone ever was at our family eye doctor. Dr. Grenier came in and looked in Roy’s eyes and asked several questions. He looked through the information he had and said he wanted Roy to have an OCT which is something Roy’s had a few times recently at our regular eye doctor. His eyes were dilated and he had the OCT on both eyes. When it was ready for Dr. Grenier to review we met with him again.

We learned several things. First is that Roy has macular degeneration in both of his eyes. This is serious. Our regular doctor never EVER mentioned that serious condition to us. This condition should have been addressed before our family eye doctor even thought of doing cataract surgery. Dr. Grenier was able to show the problem to Roy and I in the OCT of both eyes. Our original doctor did those same OCTs a couple of times and never showed us anything.

Next is that Roy has an astigmatism. The original doctor told Roy during the first office visit that he would like to also fix the astigmatism with the surgery. When Roy began seeing his vision not improve, he asked our doctor at one of the recent visits if it did fix it and we were told yes, the astigmatism no longer exists. Dr. Grenier said the lens inserted during the cataract surgery was not one that fixed astigmatism and that Roy does still have astigmatism. We have since learned that the only lens that will correct astigmatism is a toric IOL lens and yet he allowed Roy to choose the more expensive multifocal lens that did nothing to correct the astigmatism.

The lens Roy has in his eye was expensive, almost $1,900 that the insurance didn’t pay. We paid that amount extra for the multifocal lens which corrects near, immediate and far vision. That’s the kind I, Rosalyn, have in my eyes. For Roy that type of lens brought with it much more problems.

We told Dr. Grenier that our original doctor was planning to do a YAG laser capsulotomy procedure soon if his vision didn’t improve. A laser capsulotomy is a relatively simple, in-office procedure that takes only a few minutes. A laser beam is directed at the cloudy capsule behind the intraocular lens (IOL) and the energy from the laser vaporizes the tissue, restoring clear vision. Dr. Grenier said that is the not something Roy needs as his posterior capsule was perfectly clear. If he had that done this procedure, it would have essentially welded the new multifocial lens in place making it very difficult should Roy have to have the lens replaced with a monofocal lens.

So where we stand now is, Roy has an appointment with Dr. Creed, a retina specialist with Ochsner on March 6th. That problem has to be taken care of first which may involve treatment.

We signed the paper to request Roy’s eye records from our original doctor. I will also be requesting that my records be moved to Dr. Grenier. We were in such shock when we were there that I didn’t think of doing that also.

Once the retina specialist does whatever he’ll do, and Roy’s records are in Dr. Grenier’s hands, we’ll go back to Dr. Grenier. Then Roy MAY (it depends on a lot of things) have the multifocal lens removed and a monofocal lens inserted. Monofocal will only correct far vision. He’ll still need to use reading glasses but his far vision will be much better. That is the hope at least.

Roy spoke on the phone after seeing Dr. Grenier with the young man who first posted on facebook his issue with our original doctor. We learned that since he posted his experience, others have contacted him about the doctor. I, Rosalyn, am especially sad about all of this since our original doctor is someone I have always loved going to and felt confident of his abilities. Finding all this out has shattered that view of him. I have recommended him to so many people and I hope that they have not been hurt because of that.

Finding out that he has macular degeneration in both eyes is a serious thing Roy is now having to come to terms with along with all the rest. Please pray for the very best to come out of this for Roy.